Do Patients And Doctors Have The Same Conversation About Colorectal Cancer Screening?

532Background: Participant characteristics affect shared decision making. In a randomized trial of physician (MD) educational interventions to improve cancer screening guideline compliance, we studied patient (PT) and MD recall of discussions and how PT characteristics affected recall. We report the first results for colorectal cancer screening. Methods: In a cluster-randomized trial of educational supports for MDs, we are enrolling an age- (30-89 years) and sex-stratified sample of 216 PTs who underwent a physical examination at two urban hospitals, 18 for each of 12 primary care MDs. Screening guideline formatting (color-coding) and academic detailing were randomly assigned to MDs in a 2x2 design. Immediate post-encounter surveys recorded PT and MD recall of screening discussions and recommendations. Results: We report on the first 174 participants. They were diverse (63% white) and well educated (77% college degree). When MDs reported a colorectal screening discussion, 20% of PTs did not, and MDs had s...